Apple iPhones, iPad back in German online store

Take 'em down, put 'em back – a busy morning for Apple IT

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A German court has suspended the injunction that required Apple to remove its iPhone 4 and 3Gs, and iPad Wi-Fi + 3G from its online store in that country.

Apple had removed the items as requested, and are now busily putting them back up – they should be available again on the German Apple online store right ... about ... now.

"All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple's online store in Germany shortly," Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told The Reg in an emailed statement on Friday morning. "Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago."

Huguet also commented on a separate Motorola case, one in which the latter company has asserted that Cupertino is violating their patent that covers the push email capability of iCloud and its predecessor, the still-active-until-the-end-of-June MobileMe service.

Although Apple lost the first round in this battle, with the German court ruling in favor of Motorola on Friday morning, Huguet emphasized that should Motorola prevail in the appeals process, subscribers to Apple's service would still be able to receive their email, just not have it pushed to their devices.

However, Huguet told us, the courts have not yet served Apple with an injuction to stop that service in the German market, and so push notifications are continuing until such time that an injunction is handed down.

And Apple isn't backing down from the push-notification tussle. "Apple believes this old pager patent is invalid and we're appealing the courts decision," Huguet told us. ®